Investor, volunteers aid toy maker

WYTOPITLOCK – David Smalley has worked for 30 years, but only during the last year has he enjoyed a steady paycheck. His eyes are clear, his waistline is minus 25 pounds, his skin color is healthy and his attitude is even healthier, although it was never bad.

“I even got to take a brief vacation this year. I could never do that before. It used to be that we’d all go on vacation, and Dad would be the only one on the beach who couldn’t relax until about six days into it,” Smalley, 55, said during a recent interview while shopping at Wal-Mart in Lincoln. “This time I laid back on the beach and was so relaxed I never got off of it.”

The toy maker’s newfound repose came at a terrible price: a fire on Nov. 23 that devastated his Andrews Road farmhouse factory. Four interconnected buildings – a woodshop, storage area, chapel, office and schoolhouse – and about $70,000 in dollhouses, toy kitchens, castles and playstands were consumed by flames.

None of it was insured.

Today, Smalley’s Elves and Angels factory is totally redesigned, rebuilt and churning out toys. About 700 are in inventory, and Smalley hopes to manufacture another 1,200 to 1,500 units by Christmas, his busiest season, he said.

Only some of the yard and portions of the farmhouse where Smalley and his family lives still need work, he said.

The reasons for Smalley’s rebirth are several: his faith in God, generous residents, friends and other volunteers who helped his family recover from the disaster, and a Vermont investor and customer who fronted about $120,000 to help the factory come back to life, Smalley said.

“It was terrible that he had a fire, but his place is a lot better now than it ever was,” investor Ted Blood, 35, owner of Nova Natural Toys & Crafts of Shelburne, Vt., said. “It’s better designed with better lighting and layout than the old factory.

“The test is the holiday season because that’s when we do half of our sales, so we truly won’t know how well this is going until then,” Blood said Monday. “I’m hoping for the best. … I think we’ll do OK this year, and next year things will be really firmed up.”

Working through last winter’s bitterest cold, the dozen or so volunteers and almost all of David and Susan Smalley’s 11 children helped clear away farmhouse remains, replaced windows, helped install a new roof and rafters and got the large kitchen operational again.

Blood’s investment took care of the factory, which is now slightly larger than the old. As part of the deal, he bought the Smalleys’ Web site and took over the company’s marketing, leaving Smalley to handle the manufacturing.

“It’s a great partnership because I was never all that comfortable with the marketing,” Smalley said. “Now I am free of that, and I can concentrate on the manufacturing end, which is what I really like to do anyway.”

Blood fronts money to the factory for the toys he eventually sells through retailers and his Web site, www.novanatural.com, so Smalley can draw regular checks instead of enduring crushing holiday workloads and desultory off-seasons.

Blood and Smalley set a single basic price for Smalley’s goods, so his brick-and-mortar retail customers no longer have to worry about being undercut by online retail outlets, Blood said.

Smalley “can be a little suspicious at first, but since we have been working together it’s pretty clear that I am on his side,” Blood said. “He’s great. He’s pretty easygoing, and he pays attention to the details.”

Smalley is still moved by and grateful to all who helped his family survive the fire.

“We could not have done it without the help we got,” he said.